FORT WORTH, Texas — TCU has accepted a bid for full membership to become the 17th member of the Big East Conference, effective July 1, 2012.
“Our membership is genuinely excited to add an institution of the caliber of TCU to our conference,” Big East commissioner John Marinatto said in a statement Monday afternoon. “Chancellor [Victor] Boschini and athletic director Chris Del Conte clearly share the same academic and athletic aspirations of our current members and are similarly committed to sponsoring a very highly competitive athletic program.”
The conference change allows TCU to play in an automatic BCS-qualifying league beginning in the 2012-13 school year. TCU currently plays in the Mountain West Conference, which does not have an automatic bid to the BCS and is going through some changes of its own. BYU and Utah are leaving the conference just as Boise State enters.
TCU, which has an enrollment of 9,142, would become the Big East’s ninth football team. The conference has extended an invitation to Villanova to become its 10th football member.
TCU is 12-0 and ranked No. 3 in the BCS. The Frogs are at the very least headed to the Rose Bowl. But if Auburn or Oregon slip up this weekend, TCU is poised to play for a national title.
The Frogs might not have been headed to a BCS game without Boise State’s loss Friday night in overtime at Nevada. Had the Broncos remained undefeated, there was a distinct possibility that the Broncos could have passed TCU in the BCS standings and been the only non-automatic qualifier school to get into one of the top-level bowls.
According to a MWC spokesperson, TCU will not have to pay an exit fee for leaving the league under conference bylaws. The same applied to Utah (Pac-12) and BYU (independent in football and WCC in all other sports) when both notified the MWC of their intentions to leave for the 2012 season. The only thing TCU had to do was notify the league by Sept. 1 to leave for the 2011-12 season. Since TCU didn’t, the Horned Frogs will leave on July 1, 2012, the same time Nevada and Fresno State enter the Mountain West from the WAC, for the 2012-13 season.
TCU to join Big East Conference is a post from: Scoutme.com
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